From: Ad 

George Sherwood wrote:
> Adam > wrote:
>> George Sherwood wrote:
>>> Guess we have a better idea how BP won the "Contract of
the Century"
>>> here.
>> Not that far off SOP in the Oil business. What the seller wants the
>> seller gets. Heck you should ask your US oil comps wrt Angola.
>
> What did they do in Angola?  You just through out a statement.  Very
> typical answer for you.

Ask. I am sure you have lots & lots of US oil comp types around &
about in the Caspian Basin. Especially if they are from Exxon Mobil or
Chevron-Texaco.


> Show me something on this scale.

Oh mate the whole history of Africa & oil is one of staggering
corruption & such events.

There have been books written on it:

http://www.reuters.com/article/reutersEdge/idUSN0932985020070512

"The United States and other developed countries are increasingly
turning to West Africa in their scramble for oil, but for Africa the oil
boom is like a disease that creates poverty, conflict and corruption.

That's the diagnosis of Nicholas Shaxson, an Africa expert whose book
"Poisoned Wells - The Dirty Politics of African Oil" (Palgrave
Macmillan, $26.95) tours some of Africa's poorest and most violent
hot-spots.

 From simmering conflicts in the Niger Delta to civil war in Angola to
rampant corruption in Gabon and Equatorial Guinea, Shaxson contends that
these countries are worse off than they were before they struck it
rich."

& reports e.g.

"“The Main
Institution in the
Country Is
Corruption”:
Creating
Transparency in
Angola
"



&

IMF investigations:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/2986557.stm


"International Monetary Fund (IMF) investigators are arriving in
Angola on Wednesday on the trail of almost $1bn which the IMF believes
vanished from state coffers in 2001 alone.

The money, an internal report alleged late last year, came from oil sales,
the cornerstone of Angola's foreign trade.

But instead of going to fund the country's development, more than $900m
(œ565m) disappeared.

Angola has insisted accounting problems, not theft, is responsible for the mismatch.

Pervasive

The IMF report - leaked in October 2002 - pointed to a total of $4bn which
had gone missing over five years, and was scathing about what it saw as
pervasive corruption and mismanagement at the top of Angolan society.
"


Blair made a plea:

"UK Prime Minister Tony Blair has launched an initiative to persuade
multinational oil, gas and mining firms to declare publicly any payments to
government officials in developing countries.

The aim is to tackle corruption by making such financial transactions more
transparent.

The UK-led plan was unveiled at a conference in London attended by
governments from resource-rich countries, multinational oil exploration and
mining firms, and lobby groups campaigning for change. "


etc.etc.

However nothing has or will change.

BP actually was one of the few companies wot tried but got hammered coz it
said it would publish what is pays in Angloa & to who & the Angolan
gov went nuts. Your Exxon Mobil boss then went into print in the FT saying
there was no way Exxon Mobil would ever do that....



> Not just I am
> sure they did, show some proof even an accusation such as this.

Show me some proof published in one paper. You have one man's word.

Meanwhile:

http://upsidedownworld.org/ReingoldOil.htm

""I know what I was doing was wrong and unlawful," says a
thin and graying J. Bryan Williams, speaking slowly into the microphone as
he reads his guilty plea. "I believe I acted in concert with
others," he adds in monotone. But when the judge asks him who is
"CC1"—the still secret holder of another offshore account at the
same Credit Agricole Indosuez bank—he is at a loss for words. Fortunately,
the young prosecutor is eager to assist the defendant and jumps up to
announce that Mr. Williams is not required to reveal his co-conspirators.

Welcome to the oddities of a plea bargain. However, in this case, the US
Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York is willing to deal
because of the prospect of catching bigger prey. J. Bryan Williams
represented Mobil Oil in Russia, back when it was still the Soviet Union.
In 1996, Mobil sent him to the Central Asian Republic of Kazakhstan to
conclude an agreement for a $1bn, 25% stake in the Tengiz oil field, the
largest field discovered in the last thirty years.

Spurred on by the prospect of what might be the largest violation ever of
the 1977 Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, of which Williams's crime is but a
small part, prosecutors claim Mr. Williams kept $7m in unreported income in
a Swiss bank account, including kickbacks amounting to $2m from the Tengiz
deal paid to him by James Giffen, an American business consultant. Mr
Giffen was chairman of New York merchant bank Mercator Corp. and special
advisor to the President of Kazakhstan, Nursultan Nazarbayev.

Giffen, arrested on March 30th, 2003, was indicted on charges of channeling
over $78m in payments from Mobil and other western oil corporations to
senior Kazakh officials. Reportedly, President Nazarbayev controlled at
least one of the Swiss bank accounts in which the money was discovered.
"

"NGO's such as Global Witness, Transparency International, and, more
recently, billionaire financier George Soros, have been pressuring oil
companies to publish what they pay since at least the late 1990's. They
have published expos‚s, such as "All the President's Men," by
Global Witness, on the looting of state revenue in the war-torn Sub-Saharan
nation of Angola. Implicated parties include Angolan President Jose Eduardo
Dos Santos, French President Jacques Chirac, complicit multinational oil
companies, international banks, and an eclectic coterie of other characters
from arms dealers to members of the US Administration.
In Angola, Global Witness even managed to pressure British Petroleum into
disclosing its signature bonuses. However, in 2000, after BP Exploration
disclosed its payment of an $111m signature bonus for Angola's block 31 and
promised to continue to disclose its annual production and payments data,
the Angolan state oil company and concessionaire, Sonangol, threatened to
cancel BP's production sharing agreement. Making an example out of BP, it
quickly put an end to any other oil firm stepping up to voluntarily
disclose its payments to the state."

The above article is worth a read in part because you don't have to rely on
me for accusations but rather your own dear Gov e.g.

"However, as early as April 2003, a US prosecutor said Mobil is a
"subject" of the investigation, which has been underway in the US
for the last three years."


> I am
> not saying they did or not, but I haven't read it, if you have it put it
> out.  Otherwise it is just FUD.

See above. If you want exact examples they will be available to you should
you decide to ask. None of this is a secret but rather SOP.

One gets the feeling that you haven't read it in a deniable way. i.e. the
full statement is "I haven't read it because I haven't looked for
it".

>
>
>>> Also very interesting the part about MI-6 working with BP to
>>> hopefully put in governments more friendly to UK interests.
>>>
>> Again...what's new? National interests & oil/energy interests have
>> always been close (look at US actions in the ME in general).
>
> Of course, trot out the well worn line about everything in the ME being
> done for oil.  Say it enough and it becomes true right?
>

Nope but a lot of it is. Why was Mossadeq removed from power in Iran in the
50'es & the Shah put in his place & by who?

>> Do you think that the US oil types who went to Libya in the run up to
>> their giving away the bit's of scrap they called a WMD program & then
>> subsequently were all intel free?
>
> Again, what does Adam's guess that possible intel types went in with oil
> people in Libya, have to do with MI-6 being accused of helping BP
> install a more friendly government.  More FUD. Apples and oranges, mate.
>

Libya is more friendly. A gov does not have to change to become more friendly.

Adam

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